The Academy had once been a neighborhood school; its brickwork was softened by decades of weather and the noise of adolescents. Now, steel braces cinched old walls like restraints, and Watcher pylons rose at each corner, with their lenses turning the courtyard into a measured control grid. Banners draped the facade, like stylized eyes over circuitry, with slogans about unity and digital integrity scrolling beneath in endless rotation. Ryder slipped through the side entrance as a pair of late students distracted the hall monitor at the main doors. He moved with the practiced ease of someone who had mapped this building in layers: first as a student, then as an outsider, now as something far in between. He was an observer becoming an operative. The air inside reeked of sanitizer, recycled ventilation, and something far more subtle: the faint metallic taste of fear. 16 The Cleansing Classrooms lined the main corridor, with doors propped open just enough for surveillance cameras to capture each student in every seat and each note scrawled on every desk. Screens at the front of each room streamed state approved feeds, interwoven with lesson plans on civic duty, digital compliance, and the privilege of making a traceable contribution. A euphemism Ryder learned to see through years ago. He wasn’t here for any of those carefully curated lessons this time. Instead, he tracked Anya’s steps by sound and pace, until falling back only to avoid certain surveillance. His memory had the building’s layout superimposed like transparent sheets stacked into a complete map. This was not his first trip here in recent days. Third floor, end of the left wing, chemistry lab, morning block. This he knew with absolute certainty. 17 Lucian Frost The stairwell camera above him rotated with sluggish, foreseeable movements. He timed his ascent between its sweeps, slipping into the blind areas each time the motor whirred and stuttered. Martial arts had taught him a great deal about strikes and parries, about the geometry of violence and defense. The city had taught him something far more useful, however: the mathematics of absence and the precision of angles. How to move through surveilled spaces as if he were invisible, a ghost in the machine. On the second-floor landing, he paused, pressing himself into a shallow recess as two Executors passed, their conversation kept deliberately low but not inaudible. 18 The Cleansing “Credit bleed in Sector Nine again. Kids spoofing transit logs, moving phantom funds around like some kind of little Robin Hood operation,” one said. “Volkov’s block?” the other asked. “Her building’s on the list. They’re investigating.” Ryder’s shoulders tightened. Volkov. This was Anya’s surname. He waited until their footsteps faded completely down the corridor, then climbed the final flight. On the third floor, he ghosted past half-open doors, each one a small window into the armature of state education. Voices drifted from the classrooms: a teacher was reciting a digested history, while students repeated rehearsed lines about stability, prosperity, and the blessing of centralized currency. 19 Lucian Frost He recollected sitting at these desks once and how the words ricocheted off him like rain pattering glass, bouncing away without any purchase or meaning. No one had noticed when he stopped repeating them back. That had been his first act of quiet rebellion, as well as the easiest by a long shot. At the end of the hall, Anya’s classroom door stood ajar. He stopped just shy of the threshold, angling himself so the doorframe blocked the ceiling cam’s line of sight. “...and when physical cash was phased out...” he listened, as her voice cut through the hum of morning instruction permeating the halls. She regularly digressed from discussing topics like kinetics and fundamentals, only in order to fortify her students’ vigilance. Chalk tapped the board in a measured rhythm. 20 The Cleansing “...in theory, when every transaction is recorded in perpetuity, no one can hold or hide.” A student raised a hand, “But if everything’s recorded,” she asked carefully, “then why are there still shortages?” There was a pause, not long but also not state approved. It measured the distance between approved instruction and honest conversation. “Because systems....” Anya said carefully. “...and data can be used to protect—or control.” Ryder felt a prickle run along his spine. That statement was close to a ledge. He shifted, catching a glimpse of her through a narrow window. There she stood with a cluster of 21 Lucian Frost teens leaning over thin desks, their faces a blend of boredom and superficial curiosity. Anya moved diligently between rows with a tablet in hand, but her eyes kept darting to the pylon visible through the glass, to the way its lens angled toward her room. She knew she was being watched but spoke anyway. “The evanescence of cash didn’t erase inequality,” she continued. “It simply restructured how it looks. Now, access means everything: access to the network, to credits, to approval.” “Lose that, and...” The classroom screen blipped, as a presidential seal flashed, cutting her off mid-sentence, as a measured voice filled the room: “Students remember, any unauthorized commentary on state infrastructure undermines collective safety. All instruction must align with approved frameworks. Report any and all deviation.” 22 The Cleansing The students froze. Anya’s gaze snapped to the camera at the back of the room, then to the door. Ryder stepped away before her eyes could find the distorted outline of his silhouette in the glass. He moved to the service stairwell, heartbeat steady despite the jolt induced by what he’d just heard. Anya wasn’t just noticing the cracks; she was edging language into them, testing just how far she could stretch before the weight came crashing down. This either made her useful—or doomed. On the landing, he pulled a folded paper scrap from his pocket: a strip of old receipt paper, with the ink faded and barely legible. On one side, a code 23 Lucian Frost phrase: “GO TIME.” On the other, a time and place: “Beneath the Academy. After last bell.” They would meet and synergize where there were no cameras or pylons, only the forgotten guts of an old maintenance tunnel he’d discovered on a night he couldn’t sleep, when the city’s hum had been too loud to ignore. He crammed the note into the crease of the hand railing at the top of the staircase in a place he knew she brushed her hand when leaving the Academy every day. One of the small rebellions he’d planned preemptively but waited years to enact. Until now his resistance lived only in planning, training and keeping himself alive long enough for the right pressure point to appear. Maybe this young chemistry teacher with careful words and a badge she didn’t quite believe in... maybe she was one. As he slipped back into the flow of students heading for rotations, Ryder had a flashback of his 24 The Cleansing father’s last expression in the transport’s rear window—not one of fear, but of resignation. He then thought of his mother’s hollow stare at frozen screens and dwelt on his city that was choking on digital chains while telling itself they were merely ‘safety nets.’ The arts had taught him balance. Family had taught him what happened when balance faltered. In the hum of twinkling lights and murmured lessons, he felt it. The nuanced shift from waiting to acting, in the space between watching and deciding who to bring into the line of fire. Ryder walked out of the Academy with his hood up and hands loose at his sides, mind already mapping contingencies for the evening. Somewhere above, drones tracked patterns while blind to the fault lines forming beneath their grid. He now had a name, a purpose, and for the first time in a long time, a new potential ally to recruit. 25 Lucian Frost The end of the beginning was finally sealed, and a true revolt could commence. Ryder waited in the throat of the maintenance tunnel, back pressed against its crumbling stone. Drips from overhead marked slow seconds. The last bell had chimed thirteen minutes ago. He heard footsteps echo wrong at first, too hesitant for a trap, then steadied with the resolve only of someone who had found his note. Anya emerged from the gloom, with her satchel clutched like a shield. Her blue badge caught the beam of the penlight he produced. She stopped five paces out. 26 The Cleansing Her voice was low and edged like a blade she hadn’t drawn yet. “You left this?” She held up the receipt scrap between two fingers. Ryder nodded once. With no smile and only the encumbrance of evaluation in his stare, his cheekbones were cutting through the shadows.
Chapter 2